Cats, I'm convinced, are at war with humanity. It's not always obvious to human eyes, because cats fight this war with unconventional weapons: stinky poops, shredded clothes, hairballs, LOLCat memes and mind-altering cuddles. Cat ladies are the double agents in this peculiar battle, simultaneous victims of and advocates for our feline aspiring overlords. Yasmine Surovec's webcomic Cat Versus Human encapsulates the emotionally abusive relationship between a lady and her cats, in between happy snuggles.Surovec is a self-described cat lady with a good sense of humor about the fuzzy antagonists who share her home. She may love her cats (and yes, they come in multiples), but she still recognizes that we humans indulge our pets in some absurd ways: letting them paw at our faces, preparing their food just to their liking, curling up in a tiny corner of the bed so they can sprawl out, filling up our phones with hundreds of their photographs. Her gag comics are part self-parody, part poke at the evilness of cats. For every comic about how cat people won't disturb the kitty napping on their lap, no matter how much they have to pee, there's another where the cats are drawing human blood. How those kitties love to bite.
One thing is for certain: in the battle of cats versus humans, we don't have a hairball's chance in the vacuum cleaner.


SHERIDAN—The idea of a new Ruby Valley Medical Center has been in the works since 2008, and this weekend the realization of that idea opened its doors to the residents of the Ruby Valley and the patients it will serve.
BIG SKY – On Friday, August 17, the opening night of the Moonlight Music Festival, The Mission Temple Fireworks Revival with Paul Thorn & Blind Boys of Alabama had a crowd of hundreds eating out of their hands.
ENNIS—A fire camp big enough to be another Madison Valley town sprang up in Ennis last week as an incident management team from southern California arrived to begin work on the Monument and Wigwam fires.
ENNIS – The Bureau of Land Management's Dillon Field Office has issued a fire prevention order temporarily closing the Axolotl Wilderness Study Area in Madison County due to the Monument and Wigwam fires.
ENNIS—The Madison Conservation District welcomed Emily Osborn to its team earlier this summer. Osborn takes over the administrator position for the MCD from Cori Koenig.
ENNIS—The testing of some wells has already begun on the West Bench, but the Ground Water Investigation Program (GWIP) is still looking to expand the number of test sites for its data collection, set to continue until December of 2019.
ENNIS—The Monument Fire southwest of Cameron, first detected on August 6, continued to grow over the weekend and measured 4,215 acres as of Monday morning.
A second fire, the Wigwam Fire, was first detected on August 11 and has grown to almost 2,000 acres. Both fires are currently zero percent contained.
SHERIDAN - Sheridan celebrated its Summer Festival Friday, Aug. 3, through Sunday, Aug. 5, hosted by the Sheridan Volunteer Fire Department.
Friday's festivities included dinner in the park, a beer garden, a kickball tournament and music from Kneejurk.
VIRGINIA CITY—After six decades without it, Virginia City is finally getting some gas.
At its monthly meeting on Thursday, August 2, the Virginia City town council voted to approve a project that has been on the minds of residents for years—the installation of a functioning gas station.


Custom laser cut poplar wood Slice of bread cat tag. Your cat's name is engraved on the front side, and your phone number on the back.
The cat tag is 25 mm wide and 5 mm thick. It is smaller than the dog version so more harmonious on a cat, and it doesn't disturb the cat. The phone number stay easily readable.
Tags are designed by Tigre et Loup and laser cut in a parisian workshop. It is then varnished to ensure maximum strength, protection and weather resistance. Each tag comes with a double split ring for easy fastening to your cat's collar.
It is the perfect gift for your cat or your friends' cat ! Please consider the manufacturing time when placing your order.
Très mignonne petite brioche. Gravure impeccable.
The tag is funny, well made and makes us happy. Fantastic seller with great customer service. We will definitely be back!


Just a pointer. I have one client who updates his site via Xara Cloud.
Recently I required to add some html to the index head section. Obviously you can't do this in Xara Cloud, so I downloaded it and chose to open it in XDPX 15. I first got a message along the lines of this isn't a recommended method of opening this file, or similar but I choose to proceed. After this I received the attached screen-grab which I've never encountered previously.
I do occasionally receive this message on opening a xar or web files and find that dragging the file to the top bar opens the file without further issue, as was the case here.
I amended the head html, re-saved, opened in Xara Online & republished. It republished without issue but the amended head html wasn't present. I had to republish from XDPX 15.
Just having a look through another thread and this was referenced there. Sorry about the delay in response, AFAIK no one else has seen this or begun investigating it further? Please say if this isn't the case.
This has occurred once before in the QA department, and we were unable to reproduce it since then, despite trying. Are you able to reproduce this issue?
If so can you send me your file, and version number of Xara Designer Pro you're using and we can look into it further.
If you can't reproduce it, then it's similar to what we had before, 0 reproducible steps, but I've already added your report to the issue (DDES-11317) and hopefully we can track this down.
Thanks for reporting this, and again sorry about the delay in getting back to you.
Hi Ben, I cannot reproduce this issue. I have tried today, downloaded the xar file & opened it in XDPX15. It opened without error.


Robert Witherspoon has been producing major sculptural artworks since 1990 and is local to the Atlanta area.
Witherspoon has artworks in numerous USA cities and he has had international exposure in China and Scotland. Robert is often commissioned to create site specific artworks that anchor courtyards, conference center lobby's, and sculpture gardens. He has created site specific and public art work for the clients of Soho Myriad Gallery, Atlanta Beltline Inc, and Kennesaw State University. His contemporary sculptures often fit into a category of "art in public spaces". These artworks are aesthetically streamlined and built to last indefinitely. His sculptural works are often life size scale or larger and constructed in stainless steel.
Witherspoon has worked extensively as an arts instructor and currently works in arts administration for the City of Atlanta Public Art Program. His specialty is in public art conservation and urban project management. He has worked for the Fulton County Arts Council, Georgia State University, City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, and Atlanta Public Art Legacy. As an artist he believes that civic involvement in the local community is paramount to building a thriving arts community.


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S/4 HANA is an opportunity for businesses to reinvent business models and generate new revenues by taking advantage of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data by connecting people, devices and business networks.


text:
Journal #49 - Nato Thompson - The Insurgents, Part II: Fighting the Left by Being the Left
The Insurgents, Part II: Fighting the Left by Being the Left
I have to thank Rijin Sahakian for a reasonable rebuttal to the first half of my essay. It is certainly unreasonable for me as someone who resides in the United States to gloss over the violence and destruction of the Iraq War. It was not my intention to say that the efforts of COIN were in fact effective in actually "protecting the population," but instead to point out a methodology of social relationships that worked in tandem with violence. I have no desire to be a provocateur in regards to the horrible atrocities of Iraq or El Salvador, for that matter. I admit my essay could have made this point much more transparent. That said, I hope the readers find the move toward social relationships across a range of political aspirations instructive. As Brian Kuan Wood said to me, "What is worse? Killing people or making friends and then killing them?"
Continued from "The Insurgents, Part I: Community-Based Practice as Military Methodology"
The lessons that General David Petraeus deployed in Mosul came out of a combination of research and first-hand experience. Although the Iraq War was his first time in combat, he had traveled to El Salvador in 1985 with General Jack Galvin to see up close what a counterinsurgency campaign looked like. The US under Carter and Reagan was determined to stop the spread of left-wing governments worldwide, fearing Cuban and Soviet interference in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. In El Salvador, they sent in military "trainers" (they balked at the term "advisors" due to its association with the Vietnam War) and weapons (nearly $5 billion in aid, total) to support the right-wing government that was decimating the revolutionary movement of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The US trainers facilitated a conflict that came to be regarded universally as a human rights nightmare. One million people were displaced and, according to the United Nations, seventy-five thousand people were killed in a nation of roughly 5.5 million. The lessons of counterinsurgency that Petraeus witnessed in El Salvador, with its back-end reliance on personal violence such as torture, certainly foretold an experience in Iraq. In State Department circles, however, the conflict in El Salvador was viewed as somewhat of a success since the FMLN didn't come to power.
Petraeus rose steadily from Second Lieutenant in 1974 to General in 2005. Here are his medals, decoded.
The US generals and advisors behind the counterinsurgency (or "COIN" in military speak) in El Salvador had to engage in perverse double-speak, since the right-wing government they were supporting not only lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the people of the country, but also in the eyes of the US military. According to Fred Kaplan, Brigadier General Fred Woerner, who headed up the military strategy team in El Salvador, "drafted a National Campaign Plan that addressed what he called 'the root causes' of the insurgency. It laid out a program of rural land reform, urban jobs, humanitarian assistance, and basic services for a wider segment of the population."1 Ironically, these were precisely the kind of policies the rebels were fighting for.
The language surrounding the means of winning the revolution by General Woerner sounds eerily like the FMLN's intended ends. As a 1991 RAND paper aptly summarized,
In El Salvador, as in Vietnam, our help has been welcome but our advice spurned, and for very good reason. That advice—to reform radically—threatens to alter fundamentally the position and prerogatives of those in power. The United States, with its "revolutionary" means of combatting insurgency, is threatening the very things its ally is fighting to defend. Those reforms that we have deemed absolutely essential—respect for human rights, a judicial system that applies to all members of Salvadoran society, radical land redistribution—are measures no government in El Salvador has been able to achieve because they require fundamental changes in the country's authoritarian culture, economic structure and political practices.2
In January 2007, Petraeus replaced General George Casey as commanding general in Iraq. During his confirmation hearings, Petraeus articulated his idea for "the surge," which he saw as his opportunity to put into practice everything he had laid out in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24.3 The US military would firm up the new Iraqi government, provide safety for its citizens, separate the extremists from the moderates, and bolster local police forces. He also brought in several advisors who had long supported the growth of COIN thinking within the US military, including an Australian lieutenant colonel named David Kilcullen. Kilcullen had written a widely circulated document titled "Twenty-Eight Articles," which condensed the lessons of counterinsurgency into a how-to guide for soldiers. Petraeus asked Kilcullen to again write up a simple list explaining COIN strategy to soldiers involved in the surge. According to Fred Kaplan,
[Kilcullen] listed ten things they needed to do, chief among them: "Secure the people where they sleep" (because securing them only in the daytime will make them more vulnerable to revenge by insurgents at night). Another point: "Get out and walk." Armored vehicles were necessary to get from one place to another, but once you're there, mingle among the people; the vehicles offer self-protection but "at the cost of a great deal of effectiveness"; patrolling by foot is the only way to build trust, and building trust is essential to gathering reliable intelligence.4
A militarized campaign of "getting to know people" was under way. The surge didn't produce immediate results, and over the first few months, casualties among US soldier actually spiked (due in large part to their greater presence on the ground). But after the first half of 2007, civilian and troop casualties declined dramatically. Progress, from the US perspective, was finally occurring in an embattled landscape. Admittedly, the term "progress" is cynical from the start. The US effort in Iraq has left over 115,072 civilians dead, according to the Iraqi Body Count project.5
Propoganda leaflets urging the defection of Vietcong and North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, c. 1970s.
With the perceived success in Iraq, Petraeus emerged as a miracle worker. In the eyes of administration officials, he had taken an impossible situation and somehow turned it around. On April 23, 2008, President Bush nominated Petraeus to run US Central Command (USCENTCOM), located in Tampa Bay, Florida. Then, two years later, on June 23, 2010, President Obama nominated Petraeus to replace General Stanley McChrystal as the head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan—the thinking being that if COIN could work in Iraq, maybe it could work in Afghanistan as well. Petraeus's kinder, gentler form of warfare also seemed to fit perfectly with the public image of President Obama, who had run his campaign in large part on the American public's frustrations with the bellicose blundering of George W. Bush.
When it came to COIN, the most important influence on the thinking of David Petraeus was a French military strategist named David Galula, who many regard as the historic expert on counterinsurgency. His 1964 book Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice lived in relative obscurity until the US military rediscovered COIN in the early 2000s. Galula lived one of those peculiar lives marked by consistently being in the center of historic events. A French citizen born in Tunisia in 1919 and raised in Casablanca, he graduated from the prestigious Saint Cyr military academy in 1939. In 1941, he was expelled from the officer corps under the Vichy governments ban on Jews. He relocated to North Africa. There he joined the French Resistance during World War II, and then rejoined the French military. In 1945, he was deployed to China, where he witnessed first hand the Communist revolution headed by Mao Tse-tung, who was battling the Koumintang nationalists. Galula wound up being captured and held for a week. It was in captivity that he began to notice that Mao was fighting a very different kind of war. As Adam Curtis writes,
Put simply—there was no conventional army any longer, the new army were the millions of people the insurgents moved among. And there were no conventional victories any longer, victory instead was inside the heads of the millions of individuals that the insurgents lived among. If they could persuade the people to believe in their cause and to help them—then the conventional forces would always be surrounded—and would be defeated no matter how many traditional battles they won.6
In 1956, Galula volunteered to fight in the Algerian War. He wanted to test out a series of ideas he had been formulating on counterinsurgency. He deployed them in a mountain village, where he hoped to talk the revolutionaries into changing their minds:
In March 1957, I was well in control of the entire population. The census was completed and kept up to date, my soldiers knew every individual in their townships, and my rules concerning movements and visits were obeyed with very few violations. My authority was unchallenged. Any suggestion I made was promptly taken as an order and executed. Boys and girls regularly went to school, moving without protection in spite of the threats and terrorist actions against Moslem children going to French schools. Every field was cultivated. As they recognized the difference between their prospering environment and those surrounding areas still in the grip of hostilities, villagers were easily convinced of the need to preserve their peace by helping to prevent rebel infiltration.7
Counterinsurgency is a method—a method of talking and coercing people. If you take away the use of violence (which is like taking the flour out of a cake), COIN bears a remarkable similarity to that left-wing, walking-the-beat technique known as grassroots organizing. In the current landscape of everyday life—whether in Baghdad or in Oakland—culture, the built environment, politics, and media are all inextricably intertwined. In this situation, the methods of counterinsurgency have civic overtones.
The French edition of David Galula's Counterinsurgency, with a preface by Petraeus, was published in 2008.
The strategy of getting to know people is employed by all kinds of activist groups, from grassroots organizations, to church organizations (the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses know a thing or two about going door to door), to community-based artists, NGOs, and civic organizations. While it's unlikely that very many of these do-gooder groups have studied the writings of David Galula, they have probably been influenced by the writings of Saul Alinsky.
Born in 1909 to Russian Jewish immigrants in Chicago, Alinsky, like so many others, became radicalized during the lean years of the Great Depression. He organized in the predominantly Slavic neighborhood known as Back of the Yards, made famous by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. A dirty mess of meat packing plants, the working conditions there were the kind of grave injustice that fueled Alinsky's visionary pragmatism. He was a realist and refused allegiance to any ideology. His efforts became the foundation for what has become contemporary community organizing.
Not at all unlike the community-building strategies described in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 or in the writings of David Galula, Alinsky's community organizing methodology relied heavily on the creation of a network of councils whose combined interests resulted in real political power. The politics and tactics of the movement were often crafted in face-to-face meetings among community members. Alinsky's community organizing had the feel of a mobilized network of focus groups. His style was combative and nonviolent, and he regarded the battle for public opinion as fundamental to successful community organizing. Here are his thirteen principles of community organizing, from his seminal book Rules for Radicals:
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.8]), 127–30.]
Similar to Mao Tse-tung's dictum that people are the sea that revolution swims in, Alinsky's rules for radicals come out of a deep understanding of how to manipulate public perception in an uneven playing field. In essence, Alinsky's rules describe how to organize a nonviolent insurgency, which is one way to characterize community organizing and socially engaged art. Perhaps it is no wonder then that the current organizing methods of the Tea Party have been said to follow Alinsky's sage examples.
While Petraeus didn't exactly organize community meetings to improve labor standards, as he took over the war in Afghanistan he was primed to organize meetings with tribal leaders. His credibility after Iraq was at an all-time high, and the Obama Administration was eager to claim victory in the country where the Soviet Union famously failed. With support increasing in the White House for Petraeus's hearts-and-minds strategy, so too did the budget for more advisors, translators, social programs, and payoffs. One of the most talked-about and controversial of these programs was called the "Human Terrain System."
A Special Forces soldier gives an Afghan boy a coloring book in Kandahar Province. This image was later to become the cover of Soldiers magazine (November 2009). Photo: Steve Hebert.
Human Terrain
The Human Terrain System (HTS) was launched in February 2007 by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Its name reveals plenty about its aspirations. Just as the military needs to understand the landscape of the countries it invades, so too does it need to understand the complexity of the people that live there.
According to its website, "The Human Terrain System develops, trains, and integrates a social science based research and analysis capability to support operationally relevant decision-making, to develop a knowledge base, and to enable sociocultural understanding across the operational environment."9 The program had an initial budget of $20 million, which funded five teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. These "Human Terrain Teams," which included translators and anthropologists, were supposed to gather intelligence by meeting face to face with community leaders and latching onto military operations.
HTS met with almost immediately controversy, especially in the halls of academe. The militarization of anthropology and anthropologists went over like a lead balloon. In November 2007, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association issued a formal rebuke of the HTS program:
In the context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds. We have grave concerns about the involvement of anthropological knowledge and skill in the HTS project. The Executive Board views the HTS project as an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise.10
However, this strong condemnation from one of anthropology's most distinguished bodies didn't stop some anthropologists from participating in HTS. Certain academics who normally would never find themselves at the center of military culture were suddenly thrust into the limelight, as the desperation for new solutions on the part of the US military forced atypical cross-disciplinary relationships to emerge. Such was the fate of the enigmatic figure Montgomery McFate.
In 2005, Montgomery "Mitzy" McFate co-wrote, with Andrea Jackson, a short piece titled "An Organizational Solution to DOD's Cultural Knowledge Needs." It argued for the creation of a new department to consolidate cultural information during a war effort. "Establishing an office for operational cultural knowledge would solve many of the problems surrounding the effective, expedient use of adversary cultural knowledge."11 The timing was perfect, as interest in COIN was growing among the military brass. McFate, perhaps knowingly, was clearing a path for a future department in which she would play an important role.
Holding a PhD in anthropology from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, Montgomery McFate took a circuitous route to the inner sanctum of the Department of Defense. In the same year that she published the article on the DOD, she also published an odd article titled "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship." Here McFate made a series of zigzagging rhetorical maneuvers to demonstrate that anthropology's fear of replicating colonialism had led the discipline down a path of self-flagellating irrelevance. McFate argued that fear of complicity had forced anthropology to run from any kind of political relevance—such as cooperation with the US military:
The retreat to the Ivory Tower is also a product of the deep isolationist tendencies within the discipline. Following the Vietnam War, it was fashionable among anthropologists to reject the discipline's historic ties to colonialism … Rejecting anthropology's status as the handmaiden of colonialism, anthropologists refused to "collaborate" with the powerful, instead vying to represent the interests of indigenous peoples engaged in neocolonial struggles.12
Most of the academic community and many in the broader media saw McFate's arguments as a rationalization of a position of power, but McFate, who wasn't afraid to challenge the hermetic nature of academia, argued that in fact helping the military could lead to saving lives. "If you understand how to frustrate or satisfy the population's interests to get them to support your side in a counterinsurgency, you don't need to kill as many of them. And you certainly will create fewer enemies."13
To digress briefly, because biography has a way of exhibiting its own cultural turns: McFate's story is demonstrative of an evolution in the uses of culture. Montgomery McFate was first Montgomery Carlough, born in 1966 to bohemian parents living on a houseboat in Sausalito, California, just north of San Francisco. Her parents were acquaintances of Bay Area counterculture icons such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac. It is not surprising, then, that McFate took her own counterculture journey through the 1980s Bay Area punk scene. According to her childhood friend and now accomplished author Cintra Wilson, "She walked in the door one time and it was all black jeans, black combat boots, tight black sweater and this big black hat with a big black veil. It was this great look … we called her 'Satan's beekeeper' … She was goth before anybody was goth."14 Like many a young Bay Area punk, Carlough/McFate found her way to UC Berkeley in 1985 and took up the study of anthropology.
McFate went on to use her rhetorical skills to point out the disastrous inefficacy of both academia and the military. Surprisingly, it was the military that was more amenable to listening. They made a department for her—the Human Terrain System.
This undated photo, released by Obama for America, shows Barack Obama teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. The image has also been captioned as Obama teaching Alinsky's tactics. Photo: AP/Obama for America/File.
Life: An Extended Performance
What COIN projects like the Human Terrain System attempt to accomplish is something that myriad fields are trying to achieve: shaping the opinions and actions of a group of people, the premise being that social relationships have a medium and can be shaped toward a form. The cultural turn in the military over the last thirty years has coincided with a cultural turn in a variety of other fields, from anthropology to marketing to socially engaged art to policing and community organizing.
It is 1993. Black youth in Oakland have a public image problem. The war on drugs is in full effect and the mainstream media's portrayal of black youth relentlessly presents a class of people as pathologically violent. Enter the artist Suzanne Lacy, who has been volunteering in Oakland public high schools teaching classes on media literacy. She organizes a series of conversations with teachers and students—not unlike something Alinsky would organize. Some of the students are interested in having their voices heard in the media sphere, a realm from which they are usually locked out. Working with Lacy, they produce an event they hope will allow them back in. The performance, titled The Roof is on Fire, features 220 high school students sitting in parked cars on a roof talking about their lives. It is an odd encounter, but the audience and news crews in attendance hear the concerns of these kids first hand. The performance is part media stunt, part community organizing effort, part art project.
Suzanne Lacy studied under artist Allen Kaprow at the University of California at San Diego. Kaprow was renowned for his Happenings, a hybrid form of participatory performance. He was a major proponent of turning art into life: "The line between the Happening and daily life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible." But turning art into life is not such an easy task when the political realities of daily life often diminish the public sense of what constitutes art. When Lacey was studying under Kaprow in the mid-'70s, second-wave feminism was taking hold in the arts, especially on the West Coast.
In 1977, Lacy created the project Three Weeks in May, which focused on violence against women. She described it as an "extended performance" occurring over three weeks. The project unfolded in a series of life-like activities that mimicked the techniques of a community organizing campaign. Speeches by politicians, press events, radio interviews, art performances, and self-defense workshops were all choreographed movements in this theater of political life.
Lacey built upon the work of Kaprow by attempting to tackle political issues—by bringing art not only into daily life, but also into political and social life. She tried to address the contextual realities of power. This places her work in conversation with other discourses that have attempted to shape everyday life—that regard people as the center of gravity. Lacey and the likes of David Galula, Saul Alinsky, and David Petraeus employ community organizing techniques to mold the "human terrain."
Suzanne Lacy, Three Weeks in May, 1977. Performance. In this image, a hotline activist works front of the Rape Map. See for more info →
It Isn't Easy
Easier said than done. Changing public attitudes is no mean feat, particularly when you are an invading, colonizing force. With the perceived success of the surge in Iraq, the US refocused on Afghanistan, with an even larger emphasis on the role of Human Terrain Teams (HTTs). The fit was less than ideal. Poorly trained anthropologists trying to blend in with and give advice to highly trained soldiers came with its own culture clash. According to retired colonel Steve Fondacaro, who headed up the Human Terrain System program, "We're like a germ in the body of [the Army] … All of their systems are sending white blood cells to puke me up."15
The US is not a monolithic machine. It is a cumbersome infrastructure with competing if not outright conflicting interests. As much as the stated desire to protect and study the population was part of the mandate of the HTTs and the overarching COIN operations in general, these operations often found themselves working alongside the vast brutality that is the legacy of US military conquest.
Recruiting for the HTTs wasn't easy, even with the fairly large paycheck that was offered. Initially, the ideal candidate spoke Arabic and had a PhD in anthropology with a focus on the Middle East. But the qualifications were quickly relaxed to include anyone with a graduate degree in anthropology, and soon enough, anyone with a graduate degree in almost any related field. As one might imagine, having a graduate degree in sociology doesn't exactly prepare one for learning about the intricacies of Pashtun tribal culture in the midst of a war. Journalist Robert Young Pelton followed an HTT around Afghanistan and learned just how odd the fit was:
HTTs are supposed to bring down the cultural barrier between the military and the locals, but the biggest enemy is the natural inclination of troops to be troops, not social workers. Strangely enough, the Taliban is far more expert at meeting the basic needs of Afghans: namely, by fighting the corrupt central government and providing justice and security. Until that changes, the Afghans will be more inclined to identify with the "enemy" than the well-intentioned guests.16
A bad fit in a war zone doesn't just lead to bad information, but also to the loss of life. On November 4, 2008, thirty-six-year-old HTT member Paula Loyd was conducting routine surveys in a village in Kandahar Province. She had graduated from Wellesley with a degree in anthropology and had spent years as a development worker in the region. But all her training did not prepare her for the man she was interviewing to suddenly douse her in gasoline and set her on fire. She died from her burns a few months later. Her attacker, Abdul Salam, was shot while in custody by Loyd's HTT colleague and hired mercenary Don Ayala. Ayala was put on trial and found innocent.
The story is gruesome and bewildering. Of course war is violent and the death of one HTT member isn't exactly a condemnation of the program. But just such a narrative took hold in the media. There was something about a blonde-haired do-gooder being set on fire that didn't sit well with the news-watching public. It produced a backlash of skepticism regarding the effectiveness of the Human Terrain System program.
On May 2, 2011, at 11:35 p.m., President Obama announced that US troops had raided a compound in Pakistan and killed Osama Bin Laden. It was perhaps the first time a US President could claim an unqualified victory in 9/11-related military expedition. It was enough to put the brakes on COIN operations in Afghanistan. On June 22, 2011, President Obama announced that by the end of the year, ten thousand troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan. By the end of 2012, thirty-five thousand more would be withdrawn. Then on June 30, 2011, David Petraeus was confirmed as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He left his post in Afghanistan. The priorities of the US military had radically shifted.
From here the story gets fairly tabloid-esque. Steve Fondacaro had already been let go in June 2010. Then it was discovered that Montgomery McFate, writing under the pseudonym "Pentagon Diva," was the person behind the entertainingly titled blog I luv a man in Uniform. The blog gushed over the hotness of the commanders of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The last post, written on June 15, 2008 reads, "Why is Dave Kilcullen so totally, spankingly HOT? Is it because he's an Australian Army officer with a PhD in anthropology and operational experience in multiple theaters? Is it because he gives full body contact hugs? Is it because he was instrumental in Petraeus' surge strategy in Iraq?" Needless to say, this discovery might have been a contributing factor in McFate's dismissal from the Human Terrain System program in August of 2010.
The tabloid story doesn't end there. Famously, Petraeus was outed as having an extra-marital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. This happened after Tampa Bay socialite Jill Kelley, a friend of Petraeus, received threatening emails regarding her friendship with the general. She turned the emails over to the FBI. The internet trail eventually led back to Paula Broadwell. The scandal culminated in the resignation of Petraeus. It also took down General Paul Allen, who had taken over Petraeus's position in Afghanistan. Emails between himself and Jill Kelley came to light, and although Allen was cleared of any wrongdoing, he stepped down a few months later.
Means and the End
It might seem counterintuitive to compare the arts and the military. Apples and oranges for sure. But while the ends pursued by these two spheres are radically different, aspects of their means are startlingly similar. Comparing examples according to means and not ends offers a new method for understanding formal approaches to the construction of a public. As the manipulation of culture becomes a major priority across a range of disciplines, it might prove instructive to overlook disciplinary boundaries and simply compare methodologies.
The cultural turn in the military was no small initiative. It reshaped the war in Iraq and put thousands of troops on the ground in Afghanistan. While its urgency has waned for the moment, the interest in military force operating on the level of culture will only grow as wars increasingly take place in urban environments characterized by mediated cultural relations. This is the territory of all cultural actors, be they artists, police officers, marketers, or pedagogues. The different ends may or may not justify the means, but the means themselves bear a remarkable resemblance.
This comparison comes out of a sense of urgency. The militarization of social relationships and its concomitant violence would not be happening if they were not in some way effective. That is to say, the tools of counterinsurgency are not going away. They are powerful instruments for all sides. It might seem inappropriate to learn from the forces of power that use them, but hopefully, in seeing the cultural turn in the military as a descendent of the techniques of colonialism, one can begin to place methods of resistance in a new methodological light.
Nato Thompson is Chief Curator at New York-based public arts institution Creative Time.
Editorial—"Pieces of the Planet" Issue Two
In 2003, Slavoj Žižek made a very prescient observation to explain how the US under George Bush used a plot twist borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock to justify the invasion of Iraq. 1 He called it the "Iraqi MacGuffin." Now, what is a MacGuffin? Exactly. The example Žižek gives: Two men run into each other on a train. One carries a suitcase. When asked what the suitcase contains, the carrier replies, "It is a MacGuffin." But what is a MacGuffin? "It is a device used for killing leopards in the...
Sven Lütticken
World History and Earth Art
In the last decade of the twentieth and the first of the twenty-first century, the nascent discourse on "global" art took two seemingly incompatible forms. On the one hand, "the end of art history" as a discipline dependent on Western narratives was pronounced, while on the other, some scholars sought to reinvent the discipline beyond Western parameters and forge a "global art history." Hans Belting represents the first approach, noting in 2009 that "global art often escapes the arguments of...
Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?
Is the internet dead? 1 This is not a metaphorical question. It does not suggest that the internet is dysfunctional, useless or out of fashion. It asks what happened to the internet after it stopped being a possibility. The question is very literally whether it is dead, how it died and whether anyone killed it. But how could anyone think it could be over? The internet is now more potent than ever. It has not only sparked but fully captured the imagination, attention and productivity of...
Hu Fang
Dear Navigator, Part II
Continued from "Dear Navigator, Part I" 立秋 Lìqīu: Start of Autumn The sight of her turning around is as beautiful as someone suffering from melancholy. Dear Navigator, She once helped me make the bed. During an exhausting, tense journey, what could be more generous than a glass of water, a bowl of rice, and a bed in the midst of hunger and thirst? By the quiet light of the table lamp, the sight of her making the bed was unforgettable: taking clean...
Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, Manal Al Dowayan, Parag Khanna, and Turi Munthe
Freezone: Dubai
The following conversation is excerpted from FREEZONE, a discussion organized by Shumon Basar and H.G. Masters for the Global Art Forum in Dubai, March 2013. Featuring commissioned projects and research, as well as six days of live talks, the Global Art Forum brought together artists, curators, musicians, strategists, thinkers and writers under the theme of " It Means This. " Words and terms known and unknown were scrutinized or invented as a way of gauging the relationship between...
Walkthrough, Part II
Continued from " Walkthrough, Part I " During the past decade or so, I've been hearing more and more about Arab artists, about contemporary Arab art, modern Arab art, Islamic art, Middle Eastern art, its makers, sponsors, consumers, genres, and histories. I've also been fascinated by the increasing number of festivals, workshops, museums, galleries, residencies, exhibitions, prizes, foundations, schools, and journals emerging in Arab cities such as Beirut, Doha, Cairo,...
On the Format of the Divine
Legal proceedings, sermons, and the creative industries; the universal applicability of law, the consensus of the flock, and corporate ethics. All of them require that you forget or repress something, that you pay a price for the (im)possibility of joining the fold. But what if you are in a court of law, or maybe listening to a sermon, or sitting at an office, and you can't afford the fee? You start to suspect that the silent majority around you has already paid up, that they have become one...
I have to thank Rijin Sahakian for a reasonable rebuttal to the first half of my essay. It is certainly unreasonable for me as someone who resides in the United States to gloss over the violence and destruction of the Iraq War. It was not my intention to say that the efforts of COIN were in fact effective in actually "protecting the population," but instead to point out a methodology of social relationships that worked in tandem with violence. I have no desire to be a provocateur in regards...
Conversations - The Insurgents, Part II: Fighting the Left by Being the Left
Notes - The Insurgents, Part II: Fighting the Left by Being the Left
Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 28.
Benjamin C. Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador: The Frustrations of Reform and the Illusions of Nation Building (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1991). See →.
See →.
Kaplan, The Insurgents, 266.
Adam Curtis, "How to Kill a Rational Peasant," The Medium and the Message (blog), BBC.co.uk, June 16, 2012. See →.
David Galula, "From Algeria to Iraq: All But Forgotten Lessons from Nearly 50 Years Ago," RAND Review Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 2006). See →.
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (New York: Random House, 2010 [1971
"American Anthropological Association's Executive Board Statement on the Human Terrain System Project," American Anthropological Association, Nov. 6, 2007. See →.
McFate and Jackson, "An Organizational Solution to DOD's Cultural Knowledge Needs," Military Review (July–August 2005), 18–21. See →.
McFate, "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of Their Curious Relationship," Military Review (March–April 2005): 24–38. See →.
Matthew B. Stannard, "Montgomery McFate's Mission: Can One Anthropologist Possibly Steer the Course in Iraq?" April 29, 2007, sfgate.com. See →.
Noah Shachtman, "'Human Terrain' Chief Ousted," June 15, 2010, wired.com. See →.
Pelton, "Afghanistan: The New War for Hearts and Minds,"Men's Journal (Feb. 2009). See →.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Five people were injured Wednesday when scaffolding fell from a high-rise in downtown Miami, while a sixth person died of a heart attack while fleeing the falling debris, authorities said.
The collapse occurred Wednesday afternoon at the Echo Brickell building, a 60-floor condominium tower.
Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado told reporters that injuries related to the collapse were minor.
"Some woman was driving a car that was smashed," Regalado said. "Some people were injured as they were walking in Brickell [Avenue] and trying to get away."
The building's developer released a statement saying that a section of formwork fell from the top of the structure and offering thoughts and prayers to the victims.
The debris forced police to close nearby streets to traffic.
"We were just working at our computers, and all of a sudden heard a very large crash," witness Rudy Tomarchio, who works across the street, told WSVN. "We looked up, and in front of our eyes, we just see all this debris just crashing down ... We saw a couple construction workers in the crosswalk. It looked like they were trying to get out of the falling debris."
Family members identified one of the injured construction workers as 34-year-old Quincy Williams, who suffered a gash on his head.
There was no immediate word on what caused the scaffolding to fall.


Wilderness Graphics planned, designed, fabricated, and installed an exhibit located in a 275-square-foot room, highlighting the history of Captiva Island. The room size proved to be a great opportunity for us to utilize our creative team to develop a unique and "captivating" design. We turned the small room into the cabin of a mail boat - a strong historic feature of the early 20th century on Captiva. The mail boat was used to cross the bay every day to deliver mail and supplies to the islanders, a symbol of their isolation and independence. It retired in 1963. In our exhibit, each window of the boat is transformed into a "Window to the Past."


If there were ever complaints that designers aren't turning out enough warm clothes for fall, Rag & Bone's fall 2010 collection will gladly assuage all such fears. Amid a flurry of nubby sweaters, plaid capelets, and long, knitted scarves looped around at the neck and then belted to perfection, were also a series of stunning jackets: Asymmetrical, draped, paneled in leather or shearling and cut with laser-sharp precision. While the design duo turned up the heat on the runway, front-row stars like Julia Frakes and Anna Wintour kept things cool in the audience. But riddle us this: Why is it that Anna kept her trademark shades off for once, and Julia had on some serious high-voltage cat-eye frames? Either way, looks like we're in for a hot and stunning fall forecast.


text:
Q: Can't instantiate Coordinate Resource System java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org.geotools.factory.Hints I am trying to use the Geotools Java library in a project of mine an I built it using Gradle and version 14.3:
compile 'org.geotools:gt-shapefile:14.3'
compile 'org.geotools:gt-epsg-hsql:14.3'

Basically, any time I try to instantiate a CoordinateResourceSystem, such as:
CoordinateReferenceSystem crs;
try {
     crs = CRS.decode("epsg:4326"); //also tried DefaultGeographicCRS.WGS84_3D
} catch (FactoryException e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
}

I get this error at runtime:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org.geotools.factory.Hints
at org.geotools.referencing.CRS.<clinit>(CRS.java:181)

All of the advice I've received until now has had to do with enabling Multidex and I have tried every single one of the combinations of gradle prescribed, but to no avail. Also tried cleaning and building dozens of times. No matter what I do I receive this pesky error at runtime. Any thoughts as to why this could be? I can see the class in the jar.
I have noticed that this dependency imports several jars, all with similar package names. Could these package names be causing some confusion?
Really at a loss here and I can't continue with my project until I've figured out how to implement this code properly.
EDIT
Here's my logcat. Showing that there seems to be some kind of issue with how ART deals with some of the geotools classes, including the culrpit Hints class.
04-20 22:41:55.308 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.referencing.factory.ReferencingFactory>
04-20 22:41:55.311 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.311 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints$Key>
04-20 22:41:55.319 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.324 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.referencing.DefaultAuthorityFactory>
04-20 22:41:55.324 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.referencing.DefaultAuthorityFactory>
04-20 22:41:55.325 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.326 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints$Key>
04-20 22:41:55.326 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints$Key>
04-20 22:41:55.329 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.329 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.referencing.factory.AbstractAuthorityFactory>
04-20 22:41:55.330 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.referencing.factory.AbstractAuthorityFactory>
04-20 22:41:55.330 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.339 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.geometry.DirectPosition2D>
04-20 22:41:55.341 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.342 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints$Key>
04-20 22:41:55.355 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.357 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.358 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.359 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.360 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.361 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.362 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.363 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.363 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.364 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.365 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.366 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.367 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.368 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.371 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.372 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.374 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.375 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.376 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.376 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.377 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.378 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.378 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.379 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.379 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.383 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.384 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.384 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.389 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderableOp>
04-20 22:41:55.402 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.406 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderedOp>
04-20 22:41:55.406 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.PlanarImage>
04-20 22:41:55.408 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderableOp>
04-20 22:41:55.409 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderableOp>
04-20 22:41:55.410 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.RenderableOp>
04-20 22:41:55.414 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<javax.media.jai.JAI$RenderingKey>
04-20 22:41:55.414 5089-5089/com.myproject I/art: Rejecting re-init on previously-failed class java.lang.Class<org.geotools.factory.Hints>
04-20 22:41:55.414 5089-5089/com.myproject D/AndroidRuntime: Shutting down VM
04-20 22:41:55.415 5089-5089/com.myproject E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
                                                                                Process: com.myproject, PID: 5089
                                                                                java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org.geotools.factory.Hints
                                                                                at org.geotools.referencing.CRS.<clinit>(CRS.java:181)
                                                                                at com.myproject.MotionTrackingActivity.onCreate(MotionTrackingActivity.java:122)
                                                                                at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5231)
                                                                                at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1087)
                                                                                at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2160)
                                                                                at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2246)
                                                                                at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:136)
                                                                                at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1197)
                                                                                at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
                                                                                at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)
                                                                                at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5030)
                                                                                at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                                                                                at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:793)
                                                                                at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:609)

A: The "usual way" to break GeoTools referencing is to not include an EPSG factory or the include more than one. From your question I can't tell which is your problem. As described in the FAQ you need one of the epsg jars, usually gt-epsg-hsql.
Your question is tagged Android and there are some known issues with the SPI based factory finder system that GeoTools uses but I don't think that should be this issue.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Germany reveals impressive list of Unser lied für Tel Aviv songwriting camp participants
Luke MalamNovember 11, 2018Last Updated: November 11, 2018
Last year, in Lisbon, Germany's string of bad results in Eurovision came to an end when Michael Schulte came 4th with his song, You Let Me Walk Alone. This was Germany's best result in the contest since Lena's win with Satellite in 2010 and it appears to have spurred a lot of interest in the country. The list of songwriters taking part in the Unser lied für Tel Aviv songwriting camps has just been revealed and it is looking like Germany may be heading for another top 5 result!
The 24 songwriters have spent five days supporting the six Unser lied für Tel Aviv candidates. The songs will be performed in a "preliminary round" in February. Lars Ingwersen and his team will pick which songs will advance to the Unser lied für Tel Aviv live show.
Several Eurovision alumni
The list of songwriters includes several previous Eurovision participants and songwriters.
Tim Schou was the lead singer of the Danish band A Friend in London, who came 5th in Eurovision 2011 with their song New Tomorrow. The band went on to release an album in 2013 before disbanding in 2014.
You may know Axel Ehnström by his stage name, Paradise Oskar, with which he participated in Eurovision 2011 with his song, Da Da Dam. Despite being popular amongst fans, Da Da Dam finished 21st in the final.
A Eurovision-winning songwriter is also taking part – Thomas Stengaard co-wrote the Danish 2013 winner, Only Teardrops, as well as last year's German entry, You Let Me Walk Alone.
High-profile newcomers to Eurovision
There are also several artists and songwriters who have not yet taken part in Eurovision in any way, but sing or have wrote some very well-known songs! The list includes:
Kristine Bogan is from New York but lives in Berlin and has written several songs for Disney.
Steven Bashir from Stuttgart was originally a lawyer, but has gone on to write songs with Felix Jaehn and Finland's Alma.
Nina Müller is a musician from Hamburg who writes for film, television and advertising. She was one of the co-writers of Michael Schulte's You Let Me Walk Alone.
Michael Ochs mostly writes pop, country, rock or crossover music and has works with the likes of Josh Groban and Helene Fischer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSUQxLgfNAE
Tim Uhlenbrock is a writer and actor in several crime dramas. He has also wrote music previously for Madeline Juno.
Laila Samuelsen from Oslo has wrote several songs for Lena, Ivy Quainoo, Didrik Solli-Tangen and Ann Sophie.
See the rest of the songwriters for yourself here.
Could one of these songwriters bring a Eurovision winner to Unser lied für Tel Aviv? Is there anyone that you think is missing from the list?
Let us know in the comments below and on social media @ESCXTRA
Luke Malam
I've watched Eurovision for as long as I can remember, but my interest really built in 2008, after I decided to watch the semifinals online, out of boredom, before the final...I was blown away by the quality of the show and have been hooked ever since! I'm a competitive trampolinist and I love baking. I've also just completed a master's degree in Research Methods in Psychology at University College London.
Comments on Germany reveals impressive list of Unser lied für Tel Aviv songwriting camp participants


text:
Texas Toddler Dies in a Hot Car Over the Weekend
Outdoor Thermometer Showing Hot Temp. Yantis Green Photo
By Yantis Green | Jun. 24, 2019 9:54 am
GALVESTON, TX -- An infant left in a hot car Saturday while his father went to work in a Galveston, TX restaurant has died.
According to information from the Galveston Fire Department, the one-year-old boy was in an SUV for five hours in 92 degree weather while his father worked a shift in the restaurant.
Emergency responders were called to the scene and began treatment of the unresponsive infant.
The child was later pronounced dead at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Police identified the father as Albert Pena and say no charges have been filed at this time.
The death is the third in Texas since Friday and the 13th nationally.
Yantis Green - Senior Reporter
Yantis Green earned a B.A. in Journalism from Angelo State University in 1989. He studied English in the M.A. program at ASU. He is a former County Commissioner, former School Board Trustee, former GOP national delegate and author.


Creative Journey Studios is about to reopen in its exciting new location, north of Atlanta. After three months of packing, moving, building and resetting up, we are about to have our grand opening! We have a whole weekend of activities planned to celebrate our new location in Milton, Georgia. Crabapple Market, our complex, is dedicating their new park, The Green, on our opening weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with them. They plan on live music and food, which should add to our fun. Plug our new address (12630 Crabapple Rd., Suite 220, Milton 30004) into your GPS (and mark it as a favorite!). Come help us do this right! Amy Koranek from Polyform Products is coming to do demos all weekend long.
Lindly Haunani, internationally acclaimed color guru, artist, teacher and author, will be joining us to welcome you. We'll be having a trunk show for her on Friday night. She'll be debuting her new asparagus earrings along with some new 'shale' earrings that are to die for!
Many of our artists have sent new work for the opening. Christi Friesen sent a whole new batch of Goolies to greet you.
Deb Karash has made a wonderful batch of lapel pins with the guys in mind.
Donna Greenberg has created a whole new series of "Bro-oches", also known as 'Dude-Pins'. Barb Fajardo has sent a new batch of her collaged mokume. Sue Screws outdid herself with new leaf earrings. Tina Wujick created a series of pens and pen/pencil sets. Bettina Welker and Libby Mills sent new work for the opening. Ernie Hendrix created a wonderful batch of cards, as well as some new inros. Margaret Polcawich, a friend from our beginning days of polymer, joins the gallery with some delightful sculptures and tiles. Sherry Moser has created some new glass pieces. She carves and sandblasts the glass for an unusually beautiful finish and her silver work is impeccable. In addition to her necklaces and earrings, she has created some cufflinks for your French cuffs. Mary Pratt is bringing us several of her large paintings to grace our walls. You will probably recognize her work from having seen her murals around Buford. We got a nice batch of new work from Mary Filapek and Lou Ann Townsend, and Betsy Baker, while we were at the spring ACC show in Atlanta. We picked up some new work from Ann Dillon and Jeanette Kandray while we were enjoying our spring retreat. Our artist count hovers around 75, and we appreciate their continued participation. There is lots to see…and love! Help us spread the word about polymer AND the gallery. Bring a friend and come for a visit!
The Retrospective Collection….Polymer from the Beginning…. has a bunch of new pieces and has expanded into 18 cases. You'll want to set aside some time to really study it. We're extremely proud of what we have been able to put together to promote the use of polymer clay as an art medium. Unlike museum collections that come and go, Creative Journey Studios' collection is always on display to give you inspiration.
A lot of planning has been going on. We have lined up some fabulous classes all the way into 2020. Ellen has been helping your favorite teachers come up with new exciting classes. We are pleased to have some new teachers who haven't taught for us before. Carol Blackburn is coming from England, Celine Charuau from France, Bonnie Bishoff from Maine, Anna Belchi from Spain, and Kathleen Dustin from New Hampshire. Keep up with what's coming by checking the classes' page often. If there is a class you are interested in, be sure to let us know so you have a space. Our classes are small and fill up fast.
Previous Post Alice….thru the looking glass!


text:
Get Sh*t Done: The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Procrastination, & Profitability
By Jeffrey Gitomer
Read by Jeffrey Gitomer
Jeffrey Gitomer Gildan Media 9781119647201
The must-have guide for getting sh*t done! Written for those who finds it hard to Get Sh*t Done, this book is designed to have a profound, life-changing effect on anyone who wants to adopt and implement the elements of greater productivity. New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer explains why we are so often stymied by procrastination and reveals the strategies to achieve and profit more.
The must-have guide for getting sh*t done!
Written for those who finds it hard to Get Sh*t Done, this book is designed to have a profound, life-changing effect on anyone who wants to adopt and implement the elements of greater productivity. New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer explains why we are so often stymied by procrastination and reveals the strategies to achieve and profit more.
Author Bio: Jeffrey Gitomer
Jeffrey Gitomer is the world's top sales trainer and a bestselling author. His books, which include the classics The Little Red Book of Selling and The Sales Bible, have sold more than four million copies. He conducts public and corporate seminars, publishes a weekly e-zine, and writes a regular column for business journals around the county. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Category: Nonfiction/Business & Economics
Publisher: Gildan Media


text:
Q: Characterizations of the sequences $(x_k)$ without convergent subsequences I'm studying real analysis in higher dimensions and I'm trying to prove the following equivalence:

$(x_k)$ doesn't have a convergent subsequence $\Leftrightarrow$ for every bounded
  set $L\subset \mathbb R^n$, the set of the indices $k$ such that
  $x_k\in L$ is finite.

The ($\Leftarrow$) part is trivial
I need help to prove the ($\Rightarrow$) part.
Thanks in advance

A: Try with a proof by contradiction. Suppose that you can find a bounded set $L\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ such that contains infinites $x_k$. Then using to Bolzano-Weirstrass you can find a convergent subsequence in $L$. In this way we have found a contradiction.


What? Element 29, a British made vodka named after the 29th element in the periodic table, copper, has recently launched. The vodka is designed to be refillable via a12 bottle refill reservoir and claims to reduce packaging by 95%, cutting transported weight by 45% and transported volume by 63% and completely avoids the carbon costs of producing and recycling glass.


Asking for the insights of lawyers here.
A friend borrowed my credit card to purchase things for the office. We had an agreement that she will pay me back, and she gave me a blank check as a guarantee. But now that I'm claiming for payment, she is refusing to pay me the amount needed to zero out the credit cards. And the status now is I'm the one that has to pay for her credit card transactions. I've been asking for her to pay the full amount for 6 months already but she's always coming up with an excuse not to pay. I'm considering filing BP 22 estafa against her because she's been lying about when she'll pay me the full amount. The amount she owes me is roughly Php300k excluding interest charges.
I've deposited the check twice already to the bank and it bounced twice already. Now issuing a demand letter for her to pay.
Can anyone give me an idea of the process for filing this and the possible fees I have to expense?
Estafa (in relation to issuance of a bounced check) pertains when a person FRAUDULENTLY issues a check in payment of an obligation, knowing that it has insufficient or no funds. Element of Fraud is necessary.
Both these cases are criminal in nature. These are filed in order to compel the debtor to pay, considering the imprisonment involved should your debtor fails to settle the obligation.
In your case, since the checks already bounced, you did the right thing on sending a demand letter to your debtor. But I suggest use a courier that has tracking as proof that the mail is received, or course the letter through registered mail in the Post Office. If the debtor still failed to pay despite repeated demands, you may file a criminal case.
You may seek the assistance of your own lawyer, or file your complaint affidavit directly in the Prosecutor's Office, the Prosecutor will represent you in court.
You do not have the right to compel your debtor to give to you his personal property as payment of obligation, if you don't have a contract of pledge or mortgage that puts the property as collateral.
In money claims, payment in cash is the initial resort, only in case of inability to pay in cash would give the right to auction the property of your debtor, but this is through an execution process sanctioned by the court.
Which brings me to the last alternative, filing a civil case for collection of money. Since the amount is P300K, exclusive of interest, it falls under the "Small Claims", you don't need a lawyer for this case. In fact, lawyers are prohibited from appearing in behalf of clients in these cases. You may just go to the MTC in your area and ask for form for Small Claims complaint. There's also forms downloadable online.
Only cost, notarization of your complaint and filing fees.


Not being a prized golfer is no handicap for Philip Hall.
For although he reckons to be "not that good at the game", the Myerscough College partnership student has just graduated from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) with a First in golf management.
Philip, 21, started playing golf when he was six but gave it up two years later when he moved to Spain.
When he moved back to the UK aged 14 he got back into it and set his sights on a career in golf management.
I've always been business minded. I ran a tuck shop at school, setting all the prices, and saw golf as a hobby but then I found the Myerscough course online and decided it was possibly something I could do.
At Myerscough he was involved in the European Tour and he has worked alongside many of the world's leading guest lecturers. During his studies Philip got a foot in the door working as a golf shop assistant, which led on to him attending conferences in the industry.
Now he has landed a job as a sports research assistant at Myerscough working with the acclaimed Royal and Ancient and has a driving ambition to get more young people interested in the sport.
Philip, who plays with a handicap of eight, said: "I am passionate about growing the game, particular among the millennials.
"No-one in my family plays and none of my friends play but I really want the challenge to change all that."
Philip, who lives in Westhoughton, is planning to start his master's degree in January once he completes his research project and his ultimate aim is to become director of a golf resort overseas.
Philip was one of 4,000 students who graduated in front of family and friends in Preston's Guild Hall.


text:
import logging
import time

import netifaces as ni

import nytumblr

try:
    adresse_eip = ni.ifaddresses('eth0')[2][0]['addr']
except ValueError:
    adresse_eip = "..."

try:
    adresse_wip = ni.ifaddresses('wlan0')[2][0]['addr']
except ValueError:
    adresse_wip = "..."

date = time.strftime('%d/%m/%y',time.localtime())
heure = time.strftime('%H:%M',time.localtime())

message = "Démarrage du nichoir le %s à %s sur adresse %s" % (date, heure, adresse_eip)

logging.info(message)

# lancement comme un module du Cube
def init(cube, params):
    logging.info("Start nichoir")
    nytumblr.message("booting", "Lancement de l'application", message)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Whereas Sydney and Melbourne first-dwelling consumers are combating million-dollar mortgages, new analysis can reveal that in Brisbane you need as little as $300,000 to get on the housing ladder. Newest evaluation of the Residential Property Worth Register shows a 3.5 per cent fall in the variety of house transactions in 2016, to 47,175, with the trigger attributed to a dire shortage of homes out there for sale.
In many cases, equivalent to for valuable bicycles price £1,000 or extra, you possibly can be better off taking out a specialist bicycle insurance policy. At Best Bulgarian Properties you'll find a large alternative of low cost homes in Bulgaria , the place you possibly can dwell or use it on your vacation.
– It's important to disclose all data to the insurance provider corresponding to when the home was built, what type of roof you may have and the final size of the property. Under is a whole information on selecting among the share houses out there in Japan.
Earthbag buildings can simply be expanded, so that they're splendid for people who would want to slowly build their properties over time. Final yr they sold over 24,000 properties online that had been in foreclosures, for a minimal bid of $500.
The shortage is worst on the low end of the market, which is why costs in that tier are rising at twice the pace of these on the excessive end of the market. Potential upside – As a result of cheaper properties are typically below the median home pricing for the world there is generally a chance to enhance the property and bring it up to median house pricing.


text:
© RIA Novosti. Aleksandr Lyskin
Development of Arctic regions discussed at Arctic 2020 conference
The first day of the Arctic 2020 conference is over. The plenary session titled "Sustainable development of the Arctic regions: goals and approaches," focused on the development strategy for the Russian Arctic, national security until 2035, creating favorable conditions for attracting investment, as well as the Arctic investment model, the legal framework, building a modern labor and life-sustaining activity market in the Arctic, developing human resources and their role in the Arctic's socioeconomic development.
During the event, Federation Council member Yury Vazhenin suggested that draft legislation on tax incentives only supports the projects with most potential for profit, while up to 80 percent of raw rare-earth metals are purchased from abroad. "Nobody knows how many resources there are in the Arctic, but everyone wants to sell this bear's skin before the bear is caught. For example, at the recent PACE meeting advice on how to develop extraction projects in the Arctic came from France, India and Australia," he stressed.
Presidential Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Andrei Fedotov said that new initiatives of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic give people hope.
However, according to Yelena Zlenko, Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Agriculture and Food Policy and Environmental Management, people do not want to own property in the Arctic even though wages are higher. The level of social transfers is not high enough and it is necessary to increase the state support to eliminate poverty in the Arctic. Zlenko also stressed that it is necessary to provide health insurance to people working in the Arctic on a rotational basis. "Research shows that one's health changes significantly after five years of living in the north," she said.
In conclusion, Deputy Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area Alexander Kalinin added that currently, people working on a rotational basis account for about one-fourth of the population, which means that mobility is extremely high, the labor market is shrinking and the economy is sensitive to even slightest changes. "The next decade will see no stability. It is important for the Arctic regions to remain stable amid the unstable economy," he said.
Roundtable discussions on international cooperation, energy security, transport infrastructure and small businesses in the Arctic also took place on this day, with remarks from regional and municipal officials, top managers and shareholders of major Russian and foreign companies and financial institutions.
Ministry to prepare a climate change adaptation plan for the Arctic


text:
Myrbjörken är en sjö i Skinnskattebergs kommun i Västmanland och ingår i . Sjön är  meter djup, har en yta på  kvadratkilometer och befinner sig  meter över havet. Sjön avvattnas av vattendraget Flenaån.

Delavrinningsområde
Myrbjörken ingår i det delavrinningsområde (662505-150988) som SMHI kallar för Inloppet i Långbjörken. Medelhöjden är  meter över havet och ytan är  kvadratkilometer. Det finns inga avrinningsområden uppströms utan avrinningsområdet är högsta punkten. Flenaån som avvattnar avrinningsområdet har biflödesordning 5, vilket innebär att vattnet flödar genom totalt 5 vattendrag innan det når havet efter  kilometer. Avrinningsområdet består mestadels av skog (88 procent). Avrinningsområdet har  kvadratkilometer vattenytor vilket ger det en sjöprocent på  procent.

Se även
 Lista över insjöar i Skinnskattebergs kommun

Källor

Externa länkar

Insjöar i Norrströms avrinningsområde
Insjöar i Västmanland
Insjöar i Skinnskattebergs kommun

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


It's all very well getting a great deal on your car hire, but it's all too easy to find your savings disappearing in a puff of smoke if you are forced into booking a few unavoidable 'extras' to make your trip run smoothly.
Now a few are truly unavoidable, if you need snow chains you have little choice but to get them from your rental firm. Without knowing the size of the wheel on your car hire and then taking a fair portion of your baggage allowance on your flight you are really stuck with reserving them with the rental firm.
However, in a number of other areas you do have a choice.
A saving can be made here, get a quote from us using our car hire insurance comparison service which will reveal a massive saving over the price you could be asked for at the rental desk. We rarely see a saving of less than 50%, and, in some instances, it could be as much as 90%.
As the table below indicates, you can be charged dearly for a child's booster seat. Instead, why not think about a Bubblebum? It's a blow up booster seat that is fully ECE R44/04 regulation approved and can fit into a small bag that can be stowed in a glove compartment! An alternative option is to take one with you. Some airlines will allow you to check in a car seat - take a look at your airline's baggage policy. Even if you are charged, you may find it is cheaper than the cost of hiring one. Some booster seats may fit inside a suitcase!
Quotes obtained for 7 days hire May 11th-18th 2019 in Munich Airport, Germany. Prices for the week.
These prices are based on 7 days car rental from Munich Airport May 11th-18th 2019 using a child's booster seat. Local taxes may be payable.
Alternatively there is the Trunki BoostApak which is a combined backpack for kids and booster seat.
Look for offers from the brokers - often they will offer an additional driver free - and Zest package it in as standard.
Consider taking your own - given the price to hire the units, it's often cheaper to buy the software for your destination - but please be very aware of differing sat nav rules in different countries. Many countries prohibit the use of devices that can spot radar speed traps - and the penalties can be steep - not just a fine but also potentially having your sat nav and even your car impounded! Check the AA website for more details. The cheap alternative is a map!
Normally also part of a travel insurance package so, if you are going abroad, make sure you are not buying unnecessary cover.
So a few ideas on avoiding the extras - if you have any more do let us know - we will be delighted to pass them on!


Short mass production lead time by PLL technology.
Please contact Seiko Epson or local sales representative.
1.6V to 2.2V 2.5V Typ.
2.2V to 2.8V 3.3V Typ.
T_stg -40°C to +125°C Store as bare product.
OE Pin = "H" or "open" : Specified frequency output.
ST Pin ="H" or "open" : Specified frequency output.


text:
Rutianja (en francès, La Versanne) és un municipi francès, situat al departament del Loira i a la regió d'Alvèrnia-Roine-Alps. L'any 2007 tenia 358 habitants.

Demografia

Població
El 2007 la població de fet de La Versanne era de 358 persones. Hi havia 154 famílies de les quals 52 eren unipersonals (12 homes vivint sols i 40 dones vivint soles), 51 parelles sense fills i 51 parelles amb fills.

La població ha evolucionat segons el següent gràfic:

Habitants censats

Habitatges
El 2007 hi havia 279 habitatges, 158 eren l'habitatge principal de la família, 101 eren segones residències i 19 estaven desocupats. 259 eren cases i 17 eren apartaments. Dels 158 habitatges principals, 131 estaven ocupats pels seus propietaris, 20 estaven llogats i ocupats pels llogaters i 8 estaven cedits a títol gratuït; 1 tenia una cambra, 13 en tenien dues, 23 en tenien tres, 42 en tenien quatre i 80 en tenien cinc o més. 115 habitatges disposaven pel capbaix d'una plaça de pàrquing. A 69 habitatges hi havia un automòbil i a 77 n'hi havia dos o més.

Piràmide de població
La piràmide de població per edats i sexe el 2009 era:

Economia
El 2007 la població en edat de treballar era de 237 persones, 174 eren actives i 63 eren inactives. De les 174 persones actives 166 estaven ocupades (94 homes i 72 dones) i 8 estaven aturades (1 home i 7 dones). De les 63 persones inactives 28 estaven jubilades, 19 estaven estudiant i 16 estaven classificades com a «altres inactius».

Ingressos
El 2009 a La Versanne hi havia 156 unitats fiscals que integraven 372 persones, la mediana anual d'ingressos fiscals per persona era de 17.412 €.

Activitats econòmiques
Dels 16 establiments que hi havia el 2007, 3 eren d'empreses de fabricació d'altres productes industrials, 4 d'empreses de construcció, 1 d'una empresa de comerç i reparació d'automòbils, 1 d'una empresa d'hostatgeria i restauració, 1 d'una empresa immobiliària, 2 d'empreses de serveis i 4 d'empreses classificades com a «altres activitats de serveis».

Dels 5 establiments de servei als particulars que hi havia el 2009, 1 era un paleta, 2 fusteries, 1 perruqueria i 1 restaurant.

L'any 2000 a La Versanne hi havia 15 explotacions agrícoles que ocupaven un total de 312 hectàrees.

Poblacions més properes
El següent diagrama mostra les poblacions més properes.

Referències

 Résumé statistique Fitxa resum de dades estadístiques de La Versanne a l'INSEE.
 Évolution et structure de la population Fitxa amb el detall de dades de La Versanne a l'INSEE
 France par commune Dades detallades de tots els municipis de França accessibles a partir del mapa.

Municipis del Loira


text:
Q: How to refact useRouteMatch according to the react-router-dom update to v6 Hope u can help me to solve this problem! I'm a newcomer asking here so forgive me if I write something wrong.
Well, I've received a test for a job application and the purpose lookalike an old project of mine, it's a Pokedex basically, and I'm refactoring it in a new repository (I wanna use the packages at the latest version). It's been a long time since I've done the original one, and I was studying some other things so I wasn't focused on the react-router-dom updates and apparently useRouteMatch was deprecated. I've searched a lot about how to convert my old code according to the new hooks, but nothing showed up. So here is the code, made in React using Typescript:
interface PokemonParams {
  pokemon: string;
}

interface Pokemon {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  description: string;
  height: number;
  weight: number;
  base_experience: number;
  types: Array<Type>;
}

interface Type {
  type: {name: string;};
}

const Pokemon: React.FC = () => {
  const [pokemon, setPokemon] = useState<Pokemon | null>(null);
  const { params } = useRouteMatch<PokemonParams>();

  const loadPokemon = async () => {
    const pokemon = await getPokemon(params.pokemon);
    setPokemon(pokemon);
  }

  useEffect(() => {
    loadPokemon();
  }, [params.pokemon]);

A: The useRouteMatch hook was deprecated and not carried forward into react-router-dom@6. There is a useMatch hook that I feel is the spiritual successor, but it's not a direct replacement. From the code it appears you are only trying to access the route path params, and for this you would use the useParams hook. Coincidentally this is the same hook you probably should have also been using in RRDv5, see useParams v5.
Example:
const Pokemon: React.FC = () => {
  const [pokemon, setPokemon] = useState<Pokemon | null>(null);
  const { pokemon } = useParams<PokemonParams>();

  useEffect(() => {
    const loadPokemon = async () => {
      const fetchedPokemon = await getPokemon(pokemon);
      setPokemon(fetchedPokemon);
    }

    loadPokemon();
  }, [pokemon]);


This place is a bit new to me. I was here before, but at the time, I still wasn't sure about this place. My feeling are still the same so far.
I blog at a couple other places as well. One that I have been with 2007 and another one that I have had for about 3 months now or so.
Looks like I am going to have to look around and figure things out...example: Can we follow people when they make a new blog post? Can we change colors on our blog so it doesn't look so bright? etc.
Trick or treating and eating.
How good it feels on my chin.
The autumn colors red, orange, and yellow.
Winter comes far and near the bitter cold and frightful weather.
Sometimes, you have to be a kid.
An alliance not easily broken.
Not everyone has the same critique.
For what you seek is already there.
Friendship is that bond that you can get quite fond of.
Through the hard times through the good times my friend never leaves me.
I've lived away from my birthplace of Mumbai since I was 17 years old, but whenever I'm back I always make it a point to visit Shivaji Park. Each visit is always nourishing because each visit always reinforces in my mind how much Mumbai's Maharashtrian culture shapes its cricket.
After several days of public disturbances, California law enforcement placed Amanda Bynes under 5150 psychiatric hold on Monday night,the New York Daily News and Associated Press report. The 27-year-old allegedly "started a small fire in the driveway of a home" in Thousand Oaks, California, prompting local authorities to compel a psychiatric evaluation. The 5150 hold is the same 72-hour emergency psychiatric order a 26-year-old Britney Spears underwent in 2008.
I'm writing again, after a two year break. It's rough, like starting over. Ugh. But, I'm well into a tale of death, revenge, and redemption. This chapter is a work-in-progress. Posting it here helps keep me motivated.


text:
File photos Clockwise from top: Jenn Salling
Olympics would 'bring life to the sport again'
Canadian softball players focus on Surrey-hosted world championships, but Tokyo 2020 decision looms.
Nick Greenizan
When it comes to softball's potential re-introduction into the Summer Olympics, Canadian national team veteran Jenn Salling and her teammates have so far subscribed to a simple philosophy – don't think about it.
Not yet, anyhow.
Salling admits it can be tough, in idle moments, to keep one's mind from wandering to visions of Olympic medals, but until the sport, along with baseball, is voted back into the Games – a vote expected in August – then it's best to simply focus on the task at hand, which is next month's Women's World Softball Championships, set for July 15-24 in South Surrey.
"We've talked about it a few times as a team, but it's not overly discussed just because it hasn't happened yet," the veteran shortstop told Peace Arch News last week from just outside of Los Angeles, where the team was training prior to leaving for an exhibition tour of Japan.
"We do a really good job as a group of staying in the moment, and trying to be where your feet are. If we look that far ahead down the road, we're going to lose sight of where we're really headed, and right now that's the world championships."
Softball and baseball were voted off the Olympic roster in 2005, and last played at the 2008 Games in Beijing. After being largely off the radar since, the two partner sports have been thrust back into the spotlight as Tokyo – where the two sports are extremely popular – gets set to host the 2020 event.
While an official vote won't be held until August, the World Baseball Softball Confederation announced June 1 that the International Olympic Committee supported the WBSC's bid to include the two diamond sports.
"The WBSC… reconfirms our deepest gratitude to (the) Tokyo 2020 leadership for placing its trust in our sport," said WBSC president Riccardo Fraccari in a news release. "Olympic baseball and softball in Japan would be the biggest and most exciting international competition in the history of our sport."
And though she's trying hard to focus on this summer, that's not to suggest that the 28-year-old Port Coquitlam native isn't excited about the possibilities of an Olympic return.
As one of just four current members of the national team to have played at the 2008 Olympics – Jen Yee, Lauren Bay-Regula and Kaleigh Rafter are the others – she knows the experience would be an invaluable one for both her teammates and opposing players alike.
"It'd be absolutely amazing for the sport of softball. It will have been 12 years since it was in the Olympics, and as happy as I am for us veterans, I think I'm more excited for the younger ones who could have the opportunity to experience it for the first time," said Salling, who took a four-year break from the national team in order to play in a U.S.-based pro league, but returned to the international fold last summer.
"For a lot of them, they probably thought this wasn't even a possibility anymore. It brings life to the sport again."
At 28 years old – and turning 29 in July – Salling would certainly still be on the national team radar four years from now, but said it's hard to predict what might happen between now and then. In addition to training with the Canadian squad, Salling is also a graduate assistant manager with the University of Washington's softball team.
"I'm definitely not ruling the Olympics out, that's for sure. At 28/29, that's kind of when females tend to typically peak in their careers, so that gives me hope," she laughed.
"But it depends on life, and opportunities that come up. My goal is to be an (NCAA) Div. 1 softball coach, and that life can be really demanding and very rigorous. But if the opportunity is there for me, and it works out, absolutely I'd want to do it."
If she does get the opportunity to play in another Olympic Games, Salling said she'll be able to appreciate the moment moreso than she did eight years ago.
"It's hard to believe that in 2008 I was 20 years old. I was 20 years old and at the Olympics – it's crazy," she said. "Looking back, I remember bits and pieces, absolutely, but it went by so quickly.
"Now, I wouldn't say I'm mature or a know-it-all by any means, but turning 29 in July, it's going to give me a whole new perspective."
In the meantime, Salling will focus her energy and enthusiasm on the world championships, and another chance to play at the sport's highest level in front of family and friends. Her family – parents and grandparents among them – will be watching every game from the left-field bleachers at Softball City, she said.
"They'll be out there, doing their thing," she laughed.
And while the Olympics will continue to linger in the background through the summer, Salling said world championships is all her team is focused on at present.
"Right now, at this moment, we know the biggest stage we can play on is world championships, so you own that and embrace it.
"The Olympics might come in, and we'll focus on that when we know. In the meantime, we'll just continue to have high hopes."
Every home should have a carbon monoxide detector, says Surrey Fire
Straight-to-drag tickets go on sale on Jan. 31
Skylar Sheehan memorial game raises $6K
New sports academy to target at-risk youth


A final misconception is the idea that corporate philanthropy is withering away. Long considered the forerunner of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or its most discretionary element, philanthropy appears old-fashioned to many observers. Over the past decade or so, new concepts have emerged that rethink the links between business and society, beyond traditional grant-making from businesses to nonprofit organizations: social business, base of the pyramid and emerging markets, stakeholder capitalism, shared value, co-creation, etc. It is expected that businesses in the 21st century will abandon "peripheral", "diffused" corporate giving and develop practices that integrate social issues directly into the core activities of the business.
How Can Africans Profit From World Trade Liberalization?


Fitbit is reportedly in the process of acquiring Pebble, according to The Information. A second report from TechCrunch suggested Fitbit is willing to pay between $34 million and $40 million for the smartwatch maker. That's a far cry from a $740 million bid that watchmaker Citizen reportedly made for Pebble just last year. Fitbit shouldn't waste its money.
A source speaking to TechCrunch said that the new offer from Fitbit is "barely covering [Pebble's] debts," which suggests that Pebble's CEO is throwing in the towel and exiting while he can.
Pebble hasn't operated like other companies, though, instead preferring to turn to Kickstarter to back its projects. That means that consumers were paying for goods even before they were in their hands, which makes it a bit surprising that Pebble has so much in debt. It set the price of its products and knew the demand before it even built them, so why is it nearly $40 million in the hole?
That's a question we may never have an answer to, but keep this in mind: Pebble has never built and sold a product without the help of Kickstarter. That's not a very appealing business model.
Fitbit might see a strategy in buying Pebble to enter the smartwatch market, but that too probably isn't a great idea. Fitbit has struggled with sales, failing to show consumers why they should buy new products and upgrade from older Fitbit products. There's only so many ways you can create and sell a wearable that tracks your sleep, heart rate and steps, after all. Pebble isn't going to change the strategy in any of those areas, unless it has some sort of patented technology we don't know about.
Neither company has confirmed the purchase yet, but I don't think this is good news for Fitbit shareholders who have seen the share price tank from nearly $30 per share down to around $8 per share over the past year. If Pebble is willing to sell for pennies on the dollar compared to a $740 million bid from Citizen, my guess is Pebble's out of ideas, just like Fitbit is.
Sure, it's possible Pebble thinks Fitbit will be able to help it scale — the company's name is synonymous with health trackers after all — but it doesn't seem like a great addition to the company's portfolio, which already include the "Blaze" smartwatch/fitness band hybrid. I just can't wrap my head around why this deal makes any sense for either company. Maybe we'll get some sort of explanation when the deal is confirmed.